MAUNDY THURSDAY 2026
APRIL 2, 2026
FR. JERRY THOMPSON
ST. JAMES’ CHURCH, FREMONT, NE
The picture of the Last Supper by Da Vinci is the one many of us have in our heads,
with Jesus in the center and the twelve apostles gathered around him, all on one side, of course, to capture them from the artist’s perspective.
Some of you have seen the picture I encountered somewhere, the depiction I actually prefer, because it includes women and children, maybe even a dog or two, I don’t remember.
If I were painting it, I’d include a cat also, probably sitting on the table. One time soon after I was ordained a Transitional Deacon, my ex-wife and I had our bishop and his wife over to dinner in our little apartment. They were incredibly gracious people and had been very good to us, so we wanted to thank them in some way.
We were all gathered in our kitchen chatting, and we had a few minutes before dinner was ready, so we went into the dining area. There we found our cat, Bonnie, sitting in the middle of the table like some kind of furry centerpiece. She was bathing herself,
her legs sprawled wide open, and she was licking and cleaning her bottom.
I imagine something like that at the Last Supper, something very real even, perhaps, a bit comical. Because, God knows, things get serious tonight, and we can use something to break the tension of the events through which we live these days, including this night.
This night is filled with warmth and love, with tenderness and with the communion of souls.
It is also filled with betrayal, and fear, and the tearing apart of holy bonds. This night is filled with despair and uncertainty, and with great courage and deep faith in the face of that uncertainty.
And this night is filled with peace and with love because of that deep faith on the part of Jesus.
Some nights in life can be almost too real – certainly the night my son died was one of those nights for me. We’ve probably all lived through some nights like that. They might even be more real than we could ever want.
Those same nights also bring to the surface that which is most real and most true, what ultimately can be trusted in, and turned to. Those hearts reveal where our hearts truly rest, and who and what we ultimately have faith in.
This is one of those nights.
In a few minutes we’ll gather around a table as Jesus and the disciples did that last night together before Jesus was arrested.
We’ll have a light supper together.
We’ll hear how Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, serving them in a way that Peter finds offensive. And how Jesus says to Peter, “If I do not wash you, “you have no share with me.” If you do not submit to me in this time, you will not submit to me in more critical times.
And we’ll hear our Lord calling his followers to humility, to serve one another in the same way that he has served them, in the washing of the feet, yes, but in his entire life.
We’ll share bread and wine that has been blessed.
And we’ll take the leftovers to the chapel, which is set up as a garden in commemoration of the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prays to our Father,
asking his disciples to pray with him, and asking the Father to be released from what is to follow – but ultimately, that the Father’s will be done.
There in the garden we’ll place the consecrated elements, signs of Jesus’ presence among us; there in the garden where he will be betrayed by Judas with a kiss, arrested by the guards, and carted away like a criminal, rather than being treated as the creator of us all, the lover of us all, the savior of us all.
And then we’ll return here to strip the altar, as the movement toward the sacrifice of God begins, not on an altar forged by human hands, but on the cross, an altar forged by the heart of God.
We will be a part of it all, just as Jesus intends. And, if we’re watching and listening, if we’re paying attention, we’ll see how our God is changing the world today, at the same time that God is changing each of us today, making us more perfectly into his image,
and recreating the world he so dearly loves that he sent his son, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Jesus might be saved from sin and self-destruction.
If we participate in the work of God.
If we open our hearts to what God is doing, this week, this night, and every day, that is what happens: the world through us lives ever more deeply into the salvation of God.
That is precisely what God wills for us all.
Amen.
GOOD FRIDAY 2026
APRIL 3, 2026
FR. JERRY THOMPSON
ST. JAMES’ CHURCH, FREMONT, NE
I have visual aids for this evening’s homily!
When I received my Doctor of Ministry Degree back in 1995 – last century! – my ex-wife gave me what was a really spectacular gift. Carol loves giving experiences as gifts, and she gave me a long weekend at Washington National Cathedral, to have a mini-retreat.
She arranged lodging at a B & B next to the Cathedral, and although she did not realize it, the guest preacher at the main Sunday eucharist that weekend was Archbishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa! So that made the gift that much more special.
I had never been to the Cathedral before, and it is a stunning place, ripe for prayerful contemplation. Part of what makes it that way is the many side altars and individual chapels, as well as all the fine art throughout the Cathedral.
What I passed out is a picture of one of those pieces of art. It hangs, or it did at the time – I don’t know if it still does - it hung in a stairwell leading from the main floor of the Cathedral down to the undercroft where several other chapels are, including my favorite, the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea.
As you can see, the artwork is an iron depiction of the crucifixion. What I find especially breathtaking is the figure reaching upward to Jesus on the cross. It’s reminiscent of one of our Stations of the Cross, actually: the station marking Jesus taking his last breath.
In that depiction, Mary is holding onto Jesus as he dies.
In the depiction I passed out to you, the figure is reaching upward toward Jesus as he dies. You can feel the physical stretching of the woman, as well as the deep sadness and the profound longing, as she reaches out for this man, as she reaches out for this visible, physical sign of God’s love hanging, and dying, on the cross before her, put to death by the forces in this world that would rather destroy God if it were possible than conform to God’s will for a peaceful and loving human family that cares for one another and for all of God’s creation.
This is a depiction filled with tears, tears of sadness and longing, just as this holy day is filled with tears and sadness and longing.
Yes, we mark today as a good day, because we mark the sacrifice of love by God on behalf of the unfaithful human family, a revelation of God’s overwhelming love for humanity, and a revelation of how we are to love one another.
The linguistic derivation of Good Friday comes from its original name, God’s Friday,
which in many ways I prefer.
Today is God’s day, a day unlike others, and yet like every other, as God extends a holy heart to creatures who so desperately need it.
The figure reaching out in this depiction is a woman, perhaps his mother Mary herself,
as in our station of the cross of Jesus dying.
But even more so, the figure represents each of us, all of us, male and female alike, all the human family, as we reach out for the salvation of God.
Salvation means wholeness, and when the human family is living faithfully, we find our wholeness in the love of God, the love revealed to us in Jesus, and the love that calls us to have enough faith that we love one another the same way God loves us: boundlessly.
We love in a way that cares for our brothers and sisters, in a way that brings them to the wholeness God loves us all.
We know in our depths that true human wholeness is to be found there, in living out sacrificial love toward God and our neighbors, And if when we live faithfully, we reach out for that wholeness throughout our lives – not just for ourselves, but for all of our neighbors as well.
Sometimes we reach desperately, as the figure in this depiction. And sometimes we reach more quietly and gently, simply by living each day with Jesus, looking to him for our path to live peacefully with God.
We are told by a broken world that wholeness rests in many places. In the capitalist culture in which we live, for example, one of those broken messages is that wholeness arises from the accumulation of wealth and the things that accompany wealth: houses, cars, travel, clothes, etc. A bigger house, more toys, more experiences, more, more, and more.
But in reality, stripping back is often the path to the wholeness God offers. Simplicity and having less rather than more helps us to know Jesus moving among us, in our midst, at our side, offering us, his brothers and sisters, his salvation. So this God’s Friday, let’s reach again for the true source of wholeness, bare and naked, hanging before us, simple, spare, stark, and overflowing with the gracious love of God as it pours forth to all of us from the cross. All we must do is reach out toward Jesus and receive what he alone offers the world.
Amen.
EASTER SUNDAY 2026
APRIL 05, 2026
FR. JERRY THOMPSON
ST. JAMES’ CHURCH, FREMONT, NE
One time when my son, Andrew, was a teenager, he came to me and announced, “Jesus was a zombie!” I smiled and explained to him that actually, no, Jesus wasn’t a zombie, that the body raised from the dead was recognizable as the same body that went into the grave. It could eat fish and walk along a road with his friends.
But it was also different; it could walk through closed doors and disappear from a room.
Something other than a zombie story is going on in the gospels!
My teenage son wasn’t especially impressed or interested, but this was the same child who added dinosaurs to the manger scene!
What most impresses me this year about Matthew’s version of the resurrection story is the angel’s words to the two Marys who go to the tomb that Sunday morning.
He first tells the women that Jesus isn’t in the grave; “come, take a look,” the angel says. Of course the women do take a look. They’re not completely sure what’s going on,
but they likely remember Jesus’ words, the ones the angel reminds them of: Jesus has told them that he would be killed and on the third day rise.
The angel then tells the women that Jesus has gone ahead of them to Galilee. He tells them where to find our risen God, where to encounter him.
The women listen to the angel, they head off to tell the other disciples, and when Jesus meets them on the way, they worship him.
Worship, of course, is reserved for God alone. The followers of Jesus, including these women, understand this, and in Jesus, they have encountered the holiest of holies, the God of all creation, the one alone who is worthy of human worship, the only one we are called to worship.
What strikes me about Matthew’s story of the resurrection is that the disciples have to go to a particular place to encounter the risen Christ, that is, to Galilee.
We might overlook this aspect of the story because we emphasize Jesus, after his ascension, as being accessible everywhere; he’s not tied to places and times. Here, though, he is in some way tied to a particular place. Rather than being accessible to his disciples wherever they are, his body can only be met at a particular place of Jesus’ choosing.
Available in one place, available everywhere. Maybe both are true in their own way.
Yes, Jesus is accessible everywhere. He is the Lord of all creation and we can find him throughout his entire creation. He can even be found on a golf course on Sunday morning! I know some of you might be surprised to hear me say that, but of course it’s true, isn’t it?
It’s also true, though, that I don’t know anyone who goes golfing on Sunday morning
Golfing might be relaxing. It might be fun. It might be renewing.
But none of those things is about encountering the risen Christ, about being fed by him for the purpose of serving the world in his name.
On the other hand, Jesus has told us where we can find him, and that is in and among his body today, the church. In the church, we encounter the risen Christ because that’s the purpose of our existence: to be the Body of Christ in the world today.
We encounter Jesus in a variety of ways - ways that he has given us for the very purpose of coming to know him better, to love him more deeply, and to serve him more completely.
One of those ways he gives us is the rites of the church, the sacraments, such as the eucharist - holy communion, in which he feeds us with himself. Another is baptism, in which his Spirit joins us to his body.
And then there are all those other rites that are part of the lives of faithful Christians:
holy matrimony, and confirmation, and reconciliation when we have sinned, and so forth.
We also encounter Jesus is the scriptures he has so graciously given to us, both the Hebrew scriptures and the Greek scriptures, the Old and the New Testaments, given to us in order that we might know the loving nature of Christ and his will for our lives.
And then there’s the community of the church itself, the body of the risen Christ. We are imperfect, to be sure; there’s a reason the church is known as a hospital for sinners,
not a museum for saints.
And we also are filled with the Holy Spirit of God; at our best, we strive to give flesh to the holy love of God and we manage, by God’s loving grace, to actually do so.
All these encounters with Jesus are way more exciting than a zombie movie! Because through them we to come face to face with our risen Lord, whose victory over sin and death we celebrate this morning.
We embrace him and we are embraced by him. We come to know him ever more deeply, and we come to worship him, the incarnation of the living God, and the incarnation of perfect humanity, in the flesh of Jesus Christ.
The same flesh that walked as a refugee child in Egypt; The same flesh that practiced carpentry in Bethlehem; The same flesh that was baptized by John in the River Jordan;
The same flesh that sojourned as a teacher in Galilee and the surrounding area. The same flesh that took bread and said “this is my body,” and took wine and said “this is my blood.”
The same flesh that was imprisoned for crimes he did not commit, and that was whipped and spit upon; and the same flesh that hung from a cross. The same flesh that died and was buried.
And the same flesh that was raised from the dead, and that met his disciples in Galilee,
where they embraced him and worshipped him as God, as all followers of Jesus do.
The same flesh that feeds us in the eucharist and that comes to us with forgiveness and love – forgiveness for our betrayal, for our ignoring of the ways he has given us to better know him and better love him and better serve him.
And the same flesh that continues to call us to him in the Body of Christ today.
So that we may better know his love, a love that rewards us with the riches of God again and again – when we choose to seek it, when we go to him where he can be found.
He has told us where we can meet him, and there is incredible joy in going there to meet him, the same joy those early disciples knew.
If we truly trust Jesus with our lives, why would we go anywhere else, in search of something so inferior to meeting the living God?
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!